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Friday, March 29, 2013

704CH First Flight !

I think I might have set a record from airworthiness inspection to first flight. Funny enough as soon as Steve left I started putting the plane back together. All the covers went on and the plane became ready to fly the same night. Then I checked weather and found that over this weekend Seattle was scheduled to have unbelievable weather.. So I told Bekah I wanted to get out and fly Friday morning before the airport became a zoo over the weekend.

All things looked good the next morning both with the weather and with the machine itself, so literally less than 18 hours after I got my airworthiness 704CH was airborne over Paine field. First flight went well and everything as planned. Basically first flights are mainly to just pretty much make sure the plane flies as designed, and nothing more. I was incredibly nervous to the point where even my radio calls were not as smooth as I had liked. Lucky for me I called the tower ahead of time and told them my plan. Take off, climb in the pattern out of their airspace, and orbit directly above for about 30 minutes, then descend into the airspace in the pattern and land.

Bekah had a handheld and monitored from the ground, also she caught a few pics, and a I got a full length video from inside the plane. I cut the video down to less than 5 minutes so that all the good parts can be viewed for those who don't have a lot of time. ;-) I mainly got the takeoff and landing on the video.. Please, no peanut gallery comments about the slight left turn on takeoff, which catches a lot of first time pilots in RVs. I did nail the landing pretty good for a first landing though. All else went well, but boy was I nervous and excited when finished to have flown the plane !

Hey, always looking to get into Ellerport again. I have a friend who lives just down the road and its fun to come in and catch up with him. Maybe next summer I will reach out and try to find you to get permission to land there. What is your VAF handle? You can reach me at 704CH on VAF. Send me a private message and we can then remain in contact. - Thanks !